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By Anna, 23 March, 2010 12:16 pm

Ian’s Aunt – Jane – cleared out her attic. I have, therefore, inherited her entire series of Cordon Bleu cookery magazines from the 70s.

So, I’m flicking through them, expecting to laugh, snort and chortle at the antiquity of the style, presentation and structure of the recipes, but no. Oh no, no, no.

Yes, there are some recipes that are utterly outdated and some that look downright unpleasant (not that that’s the sole domain of older cookery publications – plenty of contemporary recipe books have made me turn my lip in the classic ‘bleeeech’ pose). There are some frankly, unnecessary things to do with gelatine and some equally odd uses of rabbit blood, but there is also good, solid cookery information and clever, thoughtful responses to desperate correspondence.
As I’m reading through them, my Mum informs me that she too had these publications, but when they were bound together as themed books. Reading through the recipes brought memories flooding back for her.
She even found the pigeon recipe she made the night that, on bringing the plates to the table, she tripped over the cat, threw the dinner all over the floor, put her back out and then made us all eat hairy, tepid bird. That was a fantastic night as you can imagine. Full of light-hearted, glass-half-full conversation. Not.

There are some very, very inspiring recipes too.

This is one of them. Bizarrely, it’s titled ‘pains de seigle’. Now that’s just silly, because that means ‘rye bread’ and this recipe no more resembles rye bread than a jug of rabbit’s blood, but I’m thinking they thought it needed a French name and Friday afternoon came so quickly that someone signed it off so they could rush home to whip up an Apple Charlotte.

I too have been struggling with an English name for it, so I’m beginning to get why they just went with the generic smear of French…
Anyway, these are like a chewy macaroon – a delicious, sweet, nutty, crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside (Armadillo!) cookie, moreish to the point of obsession and wonderful with anything. Make them. This recipe deserves to be made, because it works. I’m tiring of recipes that are crap – despite their protestations that they have been tested for a domestic setting – they are crap and they don’t work.

This one isn’t like that. It’s a darling; a darling joy to make.

Continue reading 'Chewy Almond Praline Cookies… petit fours even'»

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By Anna, 30 September, 2009 9:24 pm

It seems a shame not to take advantage of the abundance of peaches still in the shops – they’re cheap too and I have discovered why; they’re pretty hard. Like, ‘you could play cricket with them’ hard.
Not to worry! Roast ‘em. Add some custard and bake them as little pies. Perfick.

Continue reading 'Roasted Peach and Custard Pies'»

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By Anna, 9 September, 2009 6:49 pm

Now this IS a traditional British recipe – the cold tea loaf; a good keeper, moist, fruity, delicious and very low fat. What’s not to like?

This is in 2 parts simply because before you fling together the ingredients, you first have to soak your dried fruit in cold tea.

Continue reading 'Overnight Tea Loaf part 1'»

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By Anna, 7 September, 2009 2:27 pm

Brainwave. Sheer brainwave.

We all loved the dough for Michelle’s cinnamon buns and Mum and I were discussing how it was reminiscent of the lemony buns we can get from the bakers.

So I decided to have a go. It worked!

Continue reading 'Lemon and sultana buns'»

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By Anna, 2 September, 2009 11:16 pm

Cinnamon buns are a gift from the yeasted pastry Gods and this recipe, with cream cheese laminating the dough, is outstanding.
I first stumbled across this recipe whilst perusing Michelle’s blog; the Brown Eyed Baker.  She had, in turn, got the recipe from Joy the Baker – just goes to show that a good recipe gathers a large fan base.
These cinnamon buns are remarkable, a tender utterly delicious dough swirled with dark sugar, pecans and plenty of cinnamon. I have been searching for THE recipe and this one is it. I thought I loved the sticky bun version of cinnamon rolls, but this is much nearer the kind of famous cinnamon buns that we, sadly, cannot get in the UK.

Continue reading 'Cream Cheese Cinnamon Buns'»

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By Anna, 28 August, 2009 8:56 pm

I hate games that involve things like ‘what is your favourite flavour’ because how are you supposed to choose? I reason with myself at times like that…what does it matter? No-one’s saying I can only ever eat that one thing, no-one will beat me with a kipper if I fail to mention something that I think of later, but still I fret.

So. ONE of my favourite flavours is maple.

I would like maple on everything please – that and cinnamon. See?! I’m doing it already! I’ll discuss cinnamon obsession another time.

Continue reading 'Maple Flapjacks'»

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By Anna, 26 August, 2009 4:27 pm

I wanted a quick, easy recipe that used blueberries; something that wasn’t groaning with icings or glazes and wasn’t bettered with a dollop of cream. A real old fashioned afternoon tea bite for kids and adults alike.

This is it. Fling your ingredients in a bowl, clatter round it with an electric hand whisk, stir in the fruit then dollop into a muffin tin and remove, bronzed and perky (the buns too) to be inhaled and devoured gleefully. Soft, vanilla-y, blueberried and sweet. Yum.

5 mins to weigh the ingredients, 5 mins to mix and portion out and 20 mins in the oven. Perfick.

Continue reading 'Quick Fast Blueberry Buns'»

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By Anna, 13 August, 2009 12:06 am

When life throws you milk, make rice pudding.

Browsing through the supermarket, I happened upon a single bottle of milk.
Rah-rah, you think. But it wasn’t just a bottle of milk… oh no, it was Gold Top; that is the creamiest milk you can get your hands on. A blend of milk from Jersey and Guernsey cows, it is little more than cream dressed up in a milk dress.

Continue reading 'Rice Pudding'»

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By Anna, 11 August, 2009 9:33 pm

So after making the orange cake, I was perplexed as to what to do with the scraped, zestless oranges. Yes, I could slice them up and eat them, but that’s not exactly riveting.

Make jelly, my Mum suggested. (Jello to you gals across the pond)

So I did.

Continue reading 'Wobbly Orange jelly'»

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By Anna, 6 August, 2009 6:38 pm

Cereal. It has its place, but sometimes it’s not even a chore, not even unpleasant, it just IS.

Time to pep it up a bit. Ian has been pouring yogurt over the top, but that all got a bit milky and shudder inducing half-way through and there’s a limit to the quantity of dried fruit you can strew over it all before you get over-developed jaw muscles.

If only greek yogurt wasn’t generally so high fat and more to the point, expensive… Then we heard about straining yogurt and allowing it to sit overnight. The texture is transformed. It’s a miracle – a miracle, I tell ye!

Spoon over some sweet, poached fruit and bliss follows.

Continue reading 'A pleasing breakfast'»